Super Bowl Prediction

I think ESPN summed it up best -- "Super Bowl picks are like opinions, everyone has one". And opinions are like... well, never mind. And prior to the Saints-Bears game I wrote a lot about the fallacy on trying to pick an individual game.

The consensus is the Colts are likely to win. 14 of 21 ESPN experts picked the Colts. 68% of 340,000 voters in ESPN SportsNation picked them, 71 of 98 "celebrities" picked them, and the Vegas money line is -240/+200. All of which says the Colts have a 2 in 3 chance of winning according to a wide number of sources. Of course, whether that's reasoned analysis or believing what you hear, I don't know and by definition the Vegas line reflects popular opinion not reality.

That said, while I acknowledge that Indianapolis is the better team, I pick the Bears to win 30-21. Here's why.

• The emotional reason. The Bears are my team and in a close game it seems silly to pick against your team. And while the Colts are better, they're only 2-3 points better in my mind.
• The Bears are on a roll. Did you see the NFC Championship game!!
  
• The match-ups. The Colts have trouble stopping the run, an all-time worst run defense I believe, though they've done well in the playoffs, and the Bears like to run with Jones and Benson to control the game. Even if the Bears have some trouble stopping the run, the Colts run offense isn't good enough to beat them. The Bears have a strong pass defense which matches up against the Colts greatest strength. And the Bears kickoff and punt return team should take advantage of the Colts bottom of the league kick coverage.
• Peyton Manning. Manning is one of the great quarterbacks of all time. But he's consistently been erratic in the playoffs. For every good game he's played, he's also had a clunker. Even this year with the Colts in the Super Bowl, his post season passer rating is lower than Rex Grossman's (!), and they have the same number of TD passes though Manning has played an additional game. In his great performance against the Patriots, his rating was 79.1. The week before against Baltimore his rating was 39.6 and they won in spite of him not because of him. I don't know whether it's nerves, playing against consistently good competition, teams being more focused on stopping the Colts passing offense, too many TV commercials, or something else. Whatever it is, there's no reason to believe it won't continue against a strong Bears defense. While the QB story of the week has been which Rex Grossman will show up, really the question should be asked about Peyton Manning.
  

I won't be surprised if the Colts win. Manning is certainly capable of a big game and the Bears are capable of repeating their performance against Arizona or Miami. But it's also possible that the Bears play like they did against the Saints and the Colts play like they did against Baltimore or New England, and that would make the Bears Super Bowl Champions. 29 hours until kickoff